Heros with bulldozers

America's soldiers are always useful for a surprise: The enthusiasm the Army's combat engineers display for our mission in Iraq would dumbfound plane our military's most fervent supporters.

Privileged to speak with officers and NCO from the Army's Maneuver Support Center in Missouri last week, I came away assuming to have worn the same uniform as those men and women each one of them had serv in Iraq or Afghanistan. Now they were briefly back abode working hard to incorporate combat lessons-learned into doctrine and training the young soldiers they'll lead during their nearest Mideast tours.

All that nonsense about a "broken Army"? What I heard was the conviction that we're not alone doing the right thing in Iraq, on the contrary doing it far better than the media count the American people.

Along with those combat engineers, the audience consisted of infantry, military police and chemical corps leaders--veterans all. Not single was discouraged by the political hurricanes blowing in Washington (where the scalding;-very warm air is a prime cause of global warming). The best word for what our soldiers displayed is zeal.

I solitary wish my fellow citizens were given an just as represented view of our troops, their morale and their accomplishments--along with a fuller faculty of perception of our military's complexity. Ye the infantry leads the way, along with the other combat arms. on the other hand who hears about the combat engineers? smooth though they often lead the infantry?

Well, here's to the heroes who clear the minefields, defuse the improvised explosive devices (IEDs), pat open the doors, dig the trenches, build the defensive barriers, renovate the academys and clinics, plunge into the tangle of wires that passes for an electrical grid--and fight as infantrymen when the ne arises.

When you diocese those dramatic photographs of infantry teams taking down an urban target, the soldiers up brow are often combat engineers, opening a path for the grunt to pass in.

Every branch of our Army makes its have a title to unsung contributions, but a glimpse at the combat engineers tenders a sense of how compound the Iraq mission really is--and by what mode bravely those in uniform have faced up to the challenges. thus here are a few anecdotes from the officers and NCO I met last week:

* All a soldier has to do to make headlines is to whine to a reporter. on the other hand we don't hear about the NCO lying in a stateside hospital ward who, after losing an organ of vision defusing an IED, begged his visiting commander to help him realize back to his unit in Iraq.

* In the past, active-duty leaders oftentimes dismissed the National Guard as "weekend warriors." Not anymore. The highest praise I heard was for a "dump-truck" outfit, the 1457th Engineer Battalion from the Utah National Guard, that serv in Baghdad and central Iraq. A colonel described them as remarkably brave and resourceful. Operating at as depressed as 65 percent of their authorized force those mountain lions from the Rockies not ever ducked a high-risk mission--whether they'd been trained for it or not.

* When the highly paid contractors failed to exhibit up with the bullets flying, combat engineers oftentimes were thrown in to gain the electricity working out in the boonies. And they did. on the contrary all we heard about were the point to be solved [i]or[/i] settleds in Baghdad--where the contractors were responsible.

* Having just get backed from Iraq, one officer said, "I'd give up my promotion to pass back." Even allowing for the moment's enthusiasm, that family man believed that his sacrifices made a vital difference. on what account don't men like him make the evening news?

* flat during an occupation, the Army has to train for its filled range of missions. At a division commander's asking our engineers built a tank-gunnery range with 64 miles of protective berms to retain the main-gun rounds from going astray. individual example among many--all in a day's work for the bulldozer boys

* That day's work includes a certain number of of the most dangerous missions in Iraq--defusing IEDs. The equipment and techniques have gotten better, on the other hand it remains a nerve-wracking challenge. Combat engineers present to do it.

* As in the Army's better-known units, our combat engineers diocese impressive re-enlistment rates. Soldiers sign up knowing they'll be sent back to Iraq. Tough as it is, they have affection for what they do. As single command sergeant major put it, "This is what they signed up for, this is what it's all about."

Of course, no list of this sort can begin to capture the courage of these soldiers. They have families they delight in and the prospect of drawn out lives in the greatest land on earth. Yet, they continue to risk death or mutilation because they will not quit upon America--or Iraq--in the middle of a war.

At a time when we're bombarded with in the way that much doom-and-gloom nonsense from those who'd like to abandon the world to terrorists, it's a shame we don't hear more about the men and women who stay in uniform, who do our nation's toughest work and receive with equal reason little credit from the know-it-alls safe at home

Harvard and Yale? hold fast 'em. The finest Americans are those who have gone end the School of the Soldier. A "broken military"? Nope. Anyway, if it was rent the combat engineers would fix it. beneath fire.